Readers, listeners, TPM fans of all stripes —
I’m thrilled to announce that we’re debuting a new podcast under the TPM banner. Belaboring the Point, hosted by me, will encapsulate what I love most about working here: an obsession with ideas, our dedication to cover politics not like sports or a game, but to interrogate how our underlying systems manifest in our politics, and what narratives grow out of those. We like to tell you not just what’s happening, but why it’s happening.
The reality is, we’re very very small. By virtue of the fact that we want to know what we cover really well, the better to find new angles and explanations, it limits the breadth of subjects we can cover. We don’t want to parachute into a situation we don’t know much about, where we can’t add value for our readers and listeners.
My hope is that this podcast helps bridge that gap — that, selfishly, lets me explore questions and ideas that have been knocking around my head that I don’t get to explore in my daily reporting. To help me in that endeavor will be a rotating cast of TPM staffers and outside guests, experts on the subject matter we’re exploring.
We’ll talk about how the new right is hijacking and contorting American masculinity, whether the Inflation Reduction Act was actually a win for climate, unpack our culture of politicians as celebrities, bemoan 15 minute city conspiracy theories and why right-wingers can’t let us have nice things.
Our first episode is my conversation with Josh Kovensky and journalist Tim Mak, who up and moved to Ukraine to better cover the war and the stories of the people caught in it. It’s a fascinating conversation about a uniquely human way to report on the most dehumanizing endeavor we put ourselves through. It, like all of the episodes for the foreseeable future, will be available in the Josh Marshall Podcast feed.
I’ll chat with interesting people about interesting things, and try to make sense of various pieces of our world. I so hope you’ll join me.
